Potential of 4R Nutrient Stewardship to reduce phosphorus losses from cultivated organic soils

The role of experiential learning in the adoption of best land management practices

This study presents findings from a residential survey that examines education and outreach programs and their impacts on adoption of best management practices (BMPs). Findings indicate that specific exposure to the BMP through a place-based experience facilitated by a local organization (ecology action center—EAC) has a positive effect, but the degree to which such knowledge is transferrable within a watershed without further facilitation remains in question. Future management efforts would benefit from efforts that bring actionable information on BMPs to residents through neighborhood level programs that also incorporate place-based experiences in stimulating homeowners’ adoption of BMPs.

Purpose We examine how farmer characteristics, farm, institutional, perception and shock factors influence the adoption of the Best Management Practices (BMPs). A thorough understanding of how relevant drivers affect the adoption decision of diverse BMPs can contribute to the development of evidence-based policies. Approach We use a household survey of 1031 smallholder oil palm farmers in the forest zones of Ghana to assess the determinants of farmers’ adoption decisions. We employ a seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) model after a principal component analysis is used to extract five latent components. Findings Our findings indicate that different farmer characteristics, farm, institutional, perception and shock factors have differential associations with the adoption of diverse BMPs. Key among these are the positive perception of BMPs, access to mills, perception of soil fertility and pests and diseases. Practical implications Specific BMPs must be tailored to meet the prevailing individual socio-economic characteristics and challenges of farmers to facilitate their adoption and scale-up. Educational programmes and dissemination of information by extension agents and research institutions are needed in the promotion of BMPs to enhance effective uptake. Theoretical implication The paper contributes to the growing literature especially on the uptake of diverse management practices, utilizing both behavioural and socio-economic theories underpinning adoption, thus providing empirical evidence that adoption is influenced by both behavioural and socio-economic factors. Originality/value In the bid to increase agricultural productivity, while preserving ecosystem services, the adoption of sustainable management practices remains key for all stakeholders and policy makers. This paper presents credible information for policy makers in Ghana and Africa in designing polices to influence their adoptions.

Small-scale aquaculture systems can contribute significantly to food and nutritional security, poverty alleviation, and rural development, especially in developing countries. However, the intensification of aquaculture systems often has negative environmental outcomes. The adoption of diversification practices (e.g. polyculture, pond-dike cropping (PDC)) and better management practices (BMPs) has been identified as a possible approach to intensify sustainably small-scale aquaculture production. This study assesses the sustainability outcomes of the adoption of diversification practices and BMPs in small-scale production models. We focus on Myanmar, a developing country characterized by a rapidly expanding small-scale aquaculture sector. We analyze 624 household surveys with small-scale aquaculture producers in central and northern Myanmar. We estimate the effects of diversification practices and BMPs on different sustainability outcomes, namely economic outcomes (i.e. aquaculture yield and benefit-cost ratio), environmental outcomes (i.e. nitrogen and phosphorus use efficiency), and food security outcomes (i.e. fish self-consumption and household dietary diversity) through linear mixed-effects models. Our results reveal that diversified production models (whether integrating or not integrating BMPs) could have significant positive effects on economic and food security outcomes, as well as phosphorus use efficiency, compared to ‘unimproved monoculture’. However, such production models do not seem to have any major effect on nitrogen use efficiency. The adoption of BMPs on diversified production models seems to have little (if any) added effect on any of the studied sustainability outcomes, which suggests the need to improve existing BMPs or even develop new BMPs fit for Myanmar’s context. These findings have implications about the possible contribution of diversification practices and BMPs for enabling sustainable intensification in small-scale aquaculture settings in Myanmar, and other rural developing contexts.

Collaborative watershed management has been prescribed as a means to foster environmental behavior change among resource users. Yet little empirical research has examined this claim. This study compares the adoption of agricultural best management practices between collaborative and noncollaborative settings. Using survey and interview data, we compare farmers in two watersheds: one with a grass-roots collaborative partnership and one without. In addition, we compare participating and nonparticipating farmers within the watershed that has the collaborative partnership. Results indicate farmers in the watershed with the partnership do not have higher rates of best management practices (BMPs) adoption than farmers in the watershed with a traditional, agency-based approach encouraging BMP adoption. However, this does not mean collaboration has no effect on BMP adoption, as partnership participants exhibited higher levels of BMP adoption than did nonparticipants in the same watershed. Thus collaboration is not a panacea; rather, it is more appropriate for some contexts than others.

Phosphorus (P) runoff from agricultural sources is a recognized environmental problem, particularly in regions draining into Lake Erie. This problem may well be exacerbated particularly through increased magnitude and frequency of extreme climatic events (e.g., excessive precipitation and droughts). On the physical sciences side, the recent extensive literature focuses on structural Best Management Practices (BMPs) which have the potential to mitigate both surface and sub-subsurface P losses. Modeling studies show that there is still a lack of adoption of these P-related voluntary BMPs by the farmers. At the same time, and while the social sciences side of the literature on structural BMPs adoption weakly affirms the latter, this paper argues that the literature on resilience and on agricultural innovation can better inform our understanding of the limited adoption of phosphorus related structural BMPs by farmers in the Lake Erie Basin.

Shrimp farming in Sri Lanka is economically advantageous but faces challenges like disease outbreaks and environmental issues. The government has introduced Best Management Practices (BMPs) to ensure sustainability. This study aimed to assess BMP knowledge and adoption among Sri Lankan shrimp farmers while identifying socio-demographic and behavioral factors influencing them, which have not been previously assessed. Data were gathered from 131 shrimp farmers in Puttalam district in Sri Lanka through a questionnaire survey and analyzed using descriptive statistics and ordered logistic regressions. The results showed that 26% of farmers had poor BMP knowledge, while 37% each had fair and good knowledge. Regarding adoption, 2% exhibited poor, 89% fair, and 9% good BMP adoption. According to the ordered logistic regression results, BMP training (p < 0.01), education (p < 0.05), and workforce (p < 0.05) significantly affect the knowledge level of BMPs. In contrast, age (p < 0.05), experience (p < 0.05), income share (p < 0.1), and risk preference (p < 0.1) significantly affect the adoption of BMPs. It is recommended to provide more BMP training to shrimp farmers, to improve their knowledge. Moreover, considering socioeconomic and behavioral factors is crucial when designing policies and interventions to promote BMP adoption.

Gaining insight into best management practices for climate change impact abatement on agroecosystem services and disservices.

This study examined adoption of 10 best management practices (BMPs) to control weed resistance to herbicides using data from a survey of more than 1,000 US corn, cotton, and soybean growers. Count-data models were estimated to explain the total number of BMPs frequently practiced. Ordered-probit regressions were used to explain the frequency of individual BMP adoption. Growers practicing a greater number of BMPs frequently had more education, but less farming experience; grew cotton; expected higher yields relative to the county average; and farmed in counties with a lower coefficient of variation (CV) for yield of their primary crop. Yield expectations and variability were significant predictors of adoption of individual BMPs. Most growers frequently adopted the same seven BMPs. Extension efforts may be more effective if they targeted the three practices with low adoption rates. Counties with a high-yield CV would be areas to look for low BMP adoption.

1 Little is known of farmer responses to environmental education, and where practices aimed at improving stream health are adopted, comparisons are generally limited to between-stream comparisons rather than monitoring changes over time. A 2-year study of farmer responses to the provision of information and associated assessment of stream health following voluntary adoption of measures to improve stream health was carried out on 30 deer farms in southern New Zealand. Farmers were allocated to groups that did (n = 14) or did not (n = 11) receive information about waterway management. An additional five farmers were not involved in the information provision study. Stream health indices from a stream on each farm (n = 30 streams) were assessed in March 2001, 2002 and 2003, before and after the voluntary adoption of best management practices (BMPs) aimed at improving stream health (n = 7 streams). 2 While some stream health indices responded as expected if BMP information provision influenced stream management, no response was statistically significant. Four information farmers, one no information farmer and two not involved in the information provision study adopted BMPs on streams, including permanent fencing to exclude stock from streams and ongoing management changes such as limiting grazing intensity in deer paddocks with waterways. After BMP adoption in these seven streams, environmental conditions changed in a consistent positive manner, whereas no consistent pattern was observed in streams where BMPs were not adopted. Invertebrate community indices also improved where BMPs were adopted. 3 Synthesis and applications. This ‘BACI’-type study evaluated effects of provision of information and voluntary adoption of a range of fairly minor BMPs for stream health. No significant effects were associated with the ‘information’–‘no information’ comparison, but in streams where BMPs were voluntarily adopted, consistent improvements in stream health indices occurred within 2 years. These differences were detected despite our inability to properly control reference stream conditions and using relatively simple field methods. Such positive outcomes soon after implementation of BMPs are encouraging, although longer-term appraisals of BMP adoption are required to assess whether the positive changes observed here would generate significant improvements in stream health.

Adoption of best management practices (BMPs) to address non-point pollution from agricultural sources started in Florida citrus in the early 1990s. Since that time, BMPs have evolved to play a major role in production practices in most commodities throughout the state. Although the earliest citrus BMPs were singular in that they only addressed the movement of nitrogen from applied fertilizers into groundwater, more recent BMPs typically address irrigation and drainage management as well as off-site nutrient, sediment, pesticide movement. Since 2001, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection has allocated more than 1.6 million dollars of EPA Section 319 grant funding to a massive educational outreach and BMP demonstration and training effort by the University of Florida. This effort initially focused on citrus operations in 7 counties on the Florida east coast, and achieved stunning success in achieving over 95% compliance with the BMP program. Thousands of growers and their employees have been trained to prevent pollution and use BMPs in their operations. Since this initial effort, BMPs have been extended to cover the entire state's citrus producing areas. In 2006, a statewide vegetable and agronomic crop BMP manual was produced and a similar program funded to provide this outreach and training to this facet of the industry. This paper will discuss these efforts.

Five streams in catchments with pastoral dairy farming as the dominant land use were monitored for periods of 7–16 years to detect changes in response to adoption of best management practices (BMPs). Stream water quality was degraded at the start with respect to N, P, suspended solids (SS) and E. coli concentrations, and was typical of catchments with intensive pastoral agriculture land use. Trend analysis showed a decrease in SS concentration for all streams, generally increasing water clarity, and lower E. coli concentrations in three of the streams. These are attributed to improved stream fencing (cattle exclusion) and greater use of irrigation for treated effluent disposal with less reliance on pond systems discharging to streams. Linkages between water quality and farm actions based on survey data were used to develop BMPs that were discussed at stakeholder workshops. Generic and specific BMPs were developed for the five catchments. The 3–7 year periodicity of major climate cycles, as well as market forces and a slow rate of farmer adoption of simple BMPs mean that monitoring programs in New Zealand need to be much longer than 10 years to detect changes caused by farmer actions. Long-term monitoring is also needed to detect responses to newly legislated requirements for improved water quality.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to address the issues of correlated events and individual heterogeneity in multiple best management practices (BMPs) adoption. Design/methodology/approach The authors used survey data collected from broiler producers in Louisiana, USA. The authors estimated several duration models that either considered event dependence or heterogeneity or both. Findings Results from the conditional frailty model indicated that large farms adopt BMPs earlier, farmers who have been in broiler farming profession for a long time are late to adopt BMPs and more informed farmers, through contact with extension agents and education, are early adopters of BMPs. Research limitations/implications The limitation of this study is that the authors did not validate the robustness of the conditional frailty model using a more rigorous approach, such as empirical simulation method. Practical implications Many farmers do not adopt a new technology immediately after it becomes available. Duration models help to understand why farmers wait and how long they wait before adopting a new technology. In case of correlated events, where farmers adopt more than one technology, it is important to know the driving factors behind multiple technologies adoption. The findings from this study should help to properly target farmers to increase the adoption rate of a desired BMP. Originality/value This is the first study in agriculture technology adoption literature that uses a conditional frailty model to understand why farmers wait to adopt a new technology. This study also addresses both dependence in BMP adoption and heterogeneity in farmers’ quality that impact technology adoption.

Role of economics in developing fertilizer best management practices

OF DISSERTATION ESSAYS ON FARMER WILLINGNESS TO PARTICIPATE IN BEST MANAGEMENT PRACTICES IN THE KENTUCKY RIVER WATERSHED This dissertation explores the adoption of Best Management Practices (BMPs) in the Kentucky River watershed. Through a survey of farmers in the Kentucky River watershed, chapter two investigates farmers’ current BMP adoption and their willingness to engage in additional adoption incentivized through a proposed Water Quality Trading (WQT) program. This chapter includes two parts: the first part is to investigate the factors influencing farmers’ current usage of BMPs; the second part is to estimate farmers’ willingness to implement BMPs given different levels of compensation specified in the survey. Farmers’ experiences about BMPs are more likely to persuade them to adopt additional BMPs. The activities of using riparian buffers, fencing off animals and building up waste storage facilities are found to be responsive to the levels of compensation offered. The third chapter discusses farmers’ expected economic benefits from BMP adoption, and addresses the missing data issue. In the survey, of those respondents who indicated that they accept the offered level of compensation, about 20% of them did not answer the follow-up question of how much they would adopt the practice, creating missing data. We compare three methods to handle the issue of missing data: deletion method, mean imputation, and multiple imputation method. Following these methods, we estimate factors affecting how much farmers may engage in BMPs using a Tobit or Poisson model. The results show that increasing the compensation for using BMPs is more likely to encourage farmers to adopt riparian buffers. Results obtained using the method of multivariate imputation by chained equation are more promising than using the deletion or mean imputation method. The fourth chapter examines whether wealth change and local community interaction may affect BMP adoption. Survey data on BMP adoption are combined with the local community data from publically available sources. Results show that the decrease in land values between 2007 and 2012 discouraged the adoption of riparian buffers; the equine inventory in local communities has positive impact on the adoption of animal fences and nutrient management; the more rural the local communities are, the less likely farmers would fence off livestock from water resources.